


Oh So Lost, And Out Of Control

by dametokillfor



Series: Cold As A Stone, Rich As A Fool [3]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Feelings, Gaby is a good friend, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 19:18:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4932082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dametokillfor/pseuds/dametokillfor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/4819871">I'm Not Burning For You</a>, Napoleon is recovering when Gaby asks him something important.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oh So Lost, And Out Of Control

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Birdy's Shine.

“How long?” Gaby asks, not moments after Illya has been sent out of the medical room to find something to destroy. (He’d been pacing the small room in the medical facility they’d broken into for the hour that Napoleon had been awake. Probably longer. Gaby had finally snapped and sent him out. Even Illya knows better than to argue with Gaby.)

Napoleon wants to pretend he's asleep, or he wants to tell Gaby that he's ‘asleep’ and he can't hear her. Any other time he would, but this question is too much, too hard. He can't make light of this one, because it’s too hard to make light of. 

“Napoleon, you're not asleep. You haven't been asleep for over an hour, when your breathing changed.” 

(She's shaping up to be a damn good spy).

“Clever, Miss Teller.”

He opens his eyes, looks over to her. She is still in the same dress she'd been wearing at the party. She has Illya’s jacket draped across her shoulders, and her hair has been pulled out of its intricate 'do, falling in messy waves about her shoulders. She looks like she hasn't slept all night, but still a vision. (Why couldn’t he be gone for her? The world would be so much easier. She’s one in a million, but he could lose himself in a feminine body, without the world’s judgment.)

“I learned from the best.” She says with a smile, “How are you feeling?”

“Like the truck that ran me over reversed a few times.” Napoleon quips, pushing himself up to his elbows.

Gaby smiles, “Water?”

Napoleon nods, “Please.”

Gaby gets to her feet, and goes to the small sink in the room. Napoleon sits up properly, and takes the small cup from her when she returns. He drinks it quietly, hopes that Gaby is going to drop her line of questioning. 

After a moment though, “How long have you felt like this, Napoleon?”

And he’s thankful that she’s not named it. She's not put a name to the feelings Napoleon doesn't think he can name. 

His answer is honest, surprises him with how easily and willingly it comes out, “It started on the mission in Brazil. Illya was complaining about the heat. I told him it might melt his icy Russian heart, and he laughed.”

Napoleon is vaguely aware he sounds like a teenage girl with her first crush, that he saw those big blue eyes light up, and his whole face look younger and happier, and Napoleon felt his breath hitch. It was the first time he really saw Freddie in his friend. The comment hadn't even been all that funny, but it hadn't mattered, it had cracked Illya's façade. 

“I’d never seen him laugh until then either.” Gaby confesses, pulls the chair up closer to Napoleon’s bed. She’s smiling fondly, remembering the look on Illya’s face.

(“I did not laugh.” Illya had insisted, “That is Russian sneeze.” 

The smile on his face had said otherwise, and they’d all laughed. It was the first time he’d really let his guard around with both of them, and it was something special.)

“I don't know how often I've seen him laugh since.” Napoleon muses.

(He does.)

“His robotics must have been fixed.” He says, plastering one of his best cheeky smiles on.

Gaby swats his arm, a natural smile on her own face. Her smile quickly fades, and she looks down to the floor. She's about to ask something she doesn't want to. Basic body language.

“Do you hate me?” She asks, talking to her bare feet, her pink toenails.

And it breaks Napoleon’s heart, because how could anyone hate their sweet Gaby? Their terrifying Gaby? He knows he said it, has a horribly clear memory of what he had said to Illya under the influence.

(To Freddie, not Illya. He wasn't thinking straight).

“Gaby.” He reaches a hand out to touch her arm, to bring her back. He wants to make a joke, wants to make her laugh and smile. She sounds so small, so fragile, not at all like the Gaby he knows and loves. 

(And he does love her. She’s a partner, a sister, a best friend. She means the world to him and then some.)

“You’re my friend.” Napoleon tells her, holding her hand gently, running his thumb over her knuckles. “I don’t have friends, Gaby. Acquaintances, business contacts, drinking buddies, yes, but not friends. You and Illya though, you are my friends. You’re the most important people in my life.” 

Gaby holds Napoleon’s hand in hers, her hands cool and clammy. 

“I could never hate you, Gaby. No matter what my feelings are.”

The words feel awkward in his mouth. _No matter what my feelings are._

(He doesn’t know what his feelings are, he doesn’t know how he feels about Illya. He’s confused and frightened and he’s not felt like this since Solo was born.

Illya is gorgeous, Illya is untouchable, Illya is soft and hard and quickly becoming the centre of his world. Illya is his friend, and so much more, and so much less.

He’s not in love with him, he’s almost certain of that. Not now, not ever. He won’t let himself fall in love, his heart belongs to Freddie and Freddie alone. He’s not about to tear it in two, to offer half to a man who won’t help him staunch the bleeding, who won’t fix the pain he has caused. Falling for him would be an insult to them both. Replacing Freddie with an eerie likeness would tarnish the memory of the man himself, whereas looking at Illya as anything but Illya Kuryakin is a disservice to everything beautiful and perfect about him.

This is an infatuation, a passing fancy, an inconvenient attraction brought on by proximity and a warm smile.

This is nothing more. 

They’re lies and he knows it, but they’re so much easier than pulling apart his brain, and his heart to find a truth he isn’t sure he wants to know).

Gaby squeezes his hand, snaps him out of his thoughts. She’s smiling at him, and it’s real and beautiful and again, he wishes his misplaced adoration could have fallen on her instead. 

“You’re important to us too, Napoleon. That’s never going to change.” She tells him. She pauses, as if she’s contemplating whether or not to say something she can’t take back. Napoleon wants to say something, to stop this from being so deep, so heavy. He isn’t good with heavy. 

The door to the small room opens before Gaby can open her mouth, and Napoleon has never been happier to see Illya Kuryakin. His eyes are red, and wet. When he sees Napoleon sat up on the bed, a smile passes across his lips for all of a second.

“You are okay.” He can’t hide the genuine relief in his voice.

“I’m almost insulted you’d think otherwise.” Napoleon tells him, “It takes a lot more than a spiked drink to bring me down.”

It’s easy to slip back into the Solo persona, the quips come easy, easier than focusing on how relieved Illya sounded, easier than using it to fuel some secret fantasy about the two of them. 

Illya seems to understand. Napoleon hopes he knows how touched he is that Illya was frightened for him. 

There’s a beat, before Illya joins Napoleon in the safer territory.

“This is good. I do not have to carry your heavy weight anymore.”

“What are you trying to say, Peril?”

“Too much rich food. You are not cowboy, you would break horses back.” 

“You wound me.” Napoleon clutches his heart. 

"It is tempting." 

Gaby looks between the two of them, shakes her head. There’s a fond smile on her face, she loves these two idiots. They're bickering away happily as they tidy up the small facility, ensure nobody knows they've been there, and continue to bicker as they leave. 

Napoleon is insistent he'd be an excellent cowboy, and Illya is taking every opportunity to poke and prod at his friends hard body, to claim there's far too much fat on him. They're like children, smiles on their faces, the exhaustion and relief that they're both alive again taking over. 

Gaby spoils both of their fun, confirming that Illya is right, and Napoleon would be too heavy to be a cowboy. She also points out that the diet of beans would drive him insane. 

Illya preens. A smug grin on his face that only people who are really important, who really matter would be privy too. Like Gaby, like Napoleon. 

Maybe Napoleon doesn't have to overanalyse his feelings for Illya, maybe he doesn't need to put a name on it. Maybe this is just good enough.

**Author's Note:**

> All my knowledge of cowboys comes from Horrible Histories, which I believe is perfectly normal for a childless 28 year old. 
> 
> This is likely the penultimate instalment of this series, though I do have a few Napoleon and Freddie one shot ideas floating around. The finale will be modern day, with Illya and Gaby's son, and I'm just trying to figure out exactly which way I want it to go. Do you as readers have any preferences?
> 
> Feel free to come scream at me on [Tumblr](http://ahh-mmiehammer.tumblr.com).


End file.
